This was good. I mean, it was seriously good, the first EastEnders' Christmas episode that I've enjoyed in a long time. Did I like everything about it? No, I didn't. The main part of the storyline angered me, but the piece was well-written, well-enacted and well-presented. The parts that angered me chiefly concerned characters who have been angering me lately, but as far as holding my interest, it was a brilliant episode.
First off, hats off to the brilliant Charlie Brooks and Michael French. They carried this episode in its entirety. Brooks played an absolute blinder and French matched her step for step. Did I like the ending Janine received? No. Absolutely not, and I disliked how what she did to Michael Moon apparently has been glossed over to suit the "evil Janine" narrative that's been the meme of the show for the last ten years and which has driven it for the past five, pandering to a demographic who is so narrow-minded and intellectually bereft that they are unable to conceive the idea of a person being a complicated character filled with good and bad parts.
But I take heart from the fact that this isn't the last we'll see of Janine, and that the twist in the tale, whatever it is, is yet to come.
Janine killed in self-defence. Janine married a psychopath who sought, from the birth of their daughter, to undermine and belittle her self-esteem whilst spending all of her inheritance. Janine didn't drive Michael to do anything. She simply had a possession he wanted - Scarlett, whose name he couldn't even utter until Janine returned - and he was willing to kill her, pin the blame on a lame-brained girl who was infatuated with him, and leave with the child.
For those of you who may have forgotten, Michael and Alice plotted to drug and kill Janine and take Scarlett. This plan was enacted after Michael had attempted to strangle Janinen, resulting in her taking an injunction against him. The night he died, he tried to strangle her again, which resulted in Alice stabbing him. He would have killed Janine, himself, but Janine grabbed the knife before he did and killed him ... in self-defence.
And Alice is not entirely innocent. She has confessed, not only to murder, but to plotting murder and abduction. On the home front, she's betrayed Janine, just as everyone else had.
If anything, this episode proved to me that something can make me angry, but I can still appreciate it. That's called critical thinking - something everyone should learn to do, including teachers.
Things That Made Me Angry about this Episode
The David and Janine Show, Featuring Granny Carol.
For anyone attempting to point out that Simon Ashdown can, indeed, write Branningless episodes, think again - Carol is a Branning, and Joey featured briefly - really, this was all about redeeming one Branning.
Janine is right - David is, indeed, a horrible man; she was also right in calling him out for the selfish, greedy asshole that he is. David let his caring image slip when he uttered - or rather muttered a telling line ...
I used to be somebody around her - silk suits, keys to a Merc. Now I'm competing for change with Max Branning.
Which is exactly why he wanted quarter of a million pounds off Janine - for himself. Carol's cancer was a convenient excuse to throw at Janine to make her look small. It failed. I hate the way the Butcher-Beale-Jacksons have treated Janine, treating her like shit until they need some sort of financial recompense.
Janine owes this family! exclaimed David to Carol.
Really? Janine bought the house in which they live and rented it to them for a peppercorn, ensuring that they had a roof over their head. Otherwise, the house would have had to have been sold to clear Pat's debts. As it was, Janine cleared Pat's debts, and David wasn't too proud to ask her to pay for Pat's funeral.
For David to self-righteously claim that he was doing this for his "family," then to reiterate to Janine her utter moral worthlessness (something that Michael did regularly) and even to finish it off by grabbing her by the neck literally sucked shit for the character. David's driving force is jealousy.
He's jealous of Ricky Butcher and of his own brother Ian Beale for the part they held in Pat's affections, the fact that they were better sons to his mother than he would ever be. And he's jealous that Janine turned her life around in the wake of Pat's death. The motivating force behind his blackmail wasn't out of concern for Alice or Carol or wanting to look after Bianca, it was because Janine turned down his request for finance when he originally wanted to buy the car lot.
The most tragic thing about all of this as far as Janine was concerned is that David, a link with Pat, becomes the ultimate person to betray Janine's trust and one of a long line of people whose behaviour reinforces the poor self-esteem Janine sees in herself. Even Pat, herself, committed perjury to send Janine to prison for a crime she didn't commit - Laura Beale's accidental death - because Pat thought Janine should be punished for another death which wasn't even a crime, that of Barry Evans.
I cannot believe TPTB would want to see Janine, arguably the most nuanced and interesting character in recent years, carted off, crying in the back of a police car charged with murder.
Wait a moment ... the confession - sorry, (David's words) the forced confession of her killing Michael was privately taped without her knowledge, in exactly the same way that Lauren taped the forced confession of Stacey Slater regarding Archie Mitchell's murder ... is inadmissable evidence in a court of law. Besides, Alice has already pleaded guilty to murder.
Am I missing something here? We'll have to wait until this has been tied up, but the absolute brilliant scene of the night was the two-header at Janine's house between her and David. Janine was totally right - David is just as greedy, just as selfish and just as devious and dishonest as she is, and he'll suffer.
Which leads me to the David and Carol retcon.
As you know, I'm no fan of Carol, even though I applaud the actress who plays her. I find her character narrow-minded, amoral, judgemental and hypocritical. Yes, she's awaiting results of a biopsy to determine if she's got breast cancer, but she doesn't know the result. Based on her family history, yes, she could have the disease; but equally, the lumps could be hormonal manifestations of the menopause from which she is suffering.
The truth is, Carol wants to be "loved up" by a man - when has she not wanted this? - and at the moment, since she's had to confess her fears to David and he seems understanding, and he's also a familiar face from her past, this is the comfort sex moment. Mas is an unknown quantity, but he's also loyal, mature and someone who would be more of an emotional and psychological support and buffer than David.
I actually find the familial dynamic of Carol, Bianca and David laughable, considering that both women actually look older than Michael French, himself.
Joke line of the night came from Carol to David:-
You're a good dad ...
I spewed my tea when I heard that. David Wicks, a good dad? He's the boy who lied to his dad about a French trip in order to get 200 quid to give to Carol to abort Bianca. He's the man who came onto his daughter before he knew she was his daughter and also admitted to having feelings for her. He's the man who walked out on his marriage to Lorraine, leaving two small children and who never even knew that Karen, his younger daughter, had been killed. He's also the man who ran out, again, on his mentally ill teenaged son, leaving the boy crying after him in the rain. And since then, he's had no contact with Joe, no mention of him. Instead, it's all about Bianca. And suddenly, he's a "good dad," because he's swanned onto the family scene like Daddy Warbucks, making the kids laugh and saying the right things to his Village Idiot daughter.
But that's Carol's stupidity all over - a man she finds attractive kisses her, and she goes all gooey at the knees and they start to spread. Same old same old.
I'm glad she found the phone, because it showed her exactly what a dishonest scrote David is - the lies he was telling her were amazing, and showed her, yet again, that she's only on his mind now for comfort sex and his sympathy. What I didn't like was the fact that she gave Joey the phone.
Alice is not innocent. She broke an injunction, she plotted to murder a woman and take her child ... and she stabbed a man.
In the end, Janine is as she ever was - isolated and alone, but she's never more dangerous than when her back is to the wall. And she's never one to forget.
What does worry me now is what happens to Scarlett. I hated the fact that Queen Bitch Carol reached out for the child at the end. The child has no business with that family. She has a blood aunt in France, who's an educated professional nurse, with a grown son and in a stable relationship with her partner. She also has another blood aunt in Australia in a stable marriage and having raised children. Her paternal grandfather is also alive. She has nothing but a marital connection to Bianca, two of whose children are her cousins. She is nothing to Carol, and I would be sorely pissed off if the Jackson-Beale-Butchers got their chavvy mitts on Scarlett - or Janine's money - which isn't gone, by the way. If she didn't get the Vic, she still has the proceeds from her sale of 40 per cent of the R and R to Phil as well as other assets.
I hope she returns an avenging angel and I do hope she makes Wicks suffer.
The Bitchells and Meales.
I think it's time that Phil and Ian stopped this absurd feud. Why is it still going on? It started when Ian threw a hissy fit about Phil marrying Kathy Beale, Ian's mother, and inlaid into the mix is Phil's fear of Ian's claim on his son, who's Ian's half-brother, and his granddaughter, who's Ian's niece.
That dinner party was appalling.
And I really wanted Denise to reach down that table and smack the fetid shit out of that blonde-haired psychopath who talked to her as though she were a turd.
Ronnie seriously needs to go back to Roswell, Arizona.
Phil was just being a pig, and he proved what a total, inveterate coward he is by demanding that Ian do his utmost to break Peter and Lola up, and then to let it be known that it was always, ever Ian who disapproved, never Grandad Phil, because Grandad Phil risks losing access to Lexi if he's exposed as the hypocrite he is.
So he doesn't want to see Lola with a Beale?
I'd love to know what the Beales have done to Phil Mitchell? This is absurd, puerile and stupid. Of course, everyone knows that the more the two are prised apart, the closer they'll cling. But then, is he seriously hoping his own psycho son will go straight (sexually) and heave up with Lola, or does he expect her to remain celibate all her life?
Seriously, the Mitchells are turning into a joke. They are in a sad and sorry state when the only two who have any sort of moral compass are Billy and Lola.
Christmas with a Village Idiot.
Bianca really is too stupid for words.
And Terry wants his cake and he wants to eat it too.
I love Nikki Spraggan. She's a woman who loves her children. I loved the line that cut that bitch Bianca short:-
You've got my husband and my kids here in this house. With you. What more do you want?
Bianca wants Nikki to let go, which means that she wants to bully Nikki out of her children's lives, the way she and Carol bullied Ricky out of Liam's and Tiffany's lives. But Nikki's made of sterner stuff - she's the best parts of Sam Mitchell and Mandy Salter rolled into one, and she's not going to roll over for Bianca.
She's telling the truth - Terry asked her for Christmas Day, otherwise, he wouldn't have asked Bianca the way he did. He heard his daugther's wish to Santa, and acted upon it - she wanted to be with her mum and her dad on Christmas. Bianca's muttered remark about Rosie getting only the One Direction teeshirt being achieveable was callous. Terry should see what kind of person she is based on these remarks, but I'm not sure what he wants.
He knows his kids miss their mother, yet he blames her for ruining what he had with Bianca. The solution is simple. Terry stays with Bianca and the kids go with their mother, visiting him regularly. To deprive them of contact with their mum is cruel and selfish on his part. Yesterday, Nikki remarked that Terry was still begging her not to leave him, today she said she "let him go" three years ago. Why? I want to know what transpired. In her original visit, Nikki implied that Terry was an impulsive man who fell in love with other women easily.
Bianca's behaviour tonight was totally in character with the childish, self-centred, puerile chavvy bitch she is. What was karmic was her eventually admitting, in little girl fashion, that she really didn't know Terry at all. She just got with him because he was nice to her. Like mother, like daughter.
What an appalling woman she is.
And as much as I like the character of Terry Spraggan, he needs to be in small doses, because the man cannot act.
Things I Liked about This Episode
Moon River.
You just knew that Kat's gift was a cornucopia of successively small packages which would eventually result in a pregnancy test.
I'm happy for the Moons. I love them as a couple, and I hope they go from strength to strength in their new direction. Alfie is one of the few genuinely nice characters in a soap filled with people it's become all to easy to hate.
Another good and subtle power transition was the understated scene between Shane Richie and Danny Dyer. At the end of the day, it really is all about the Queen Vic.
What Surprised Me about This Episode.
A Legion of Whispery-Voiced Men.
In the beginning, we had Phil Mitchell's rasp. Then came Beppe DiMarco, followed by Steve Owen.
Then came the Manc brigade of Jase Dyer, Tony King and now Jake Stone.
A legion of whispery-voiced men, speaking softly and probably wishing they carried a big phallic stick.
Enter the newest member of that fraternity - Danny Dyer as Mick Carter.
Very subtle introduction to a new character played by an actor heretofore known for having a sewer for a mouth and for playing a gangster.
Understated, with a few interactions - and a passing of the torch from past EastEnders (the "transfer of power" with Phil ...
It's all there. You'll find I'm an honest man.
to a brief exchange with the daughter of another iconic landlord, Janine Butcher.
And his original scene with the current landlord, Alfie Moon, who declared the pub, fondly, the best boozer in London.
As Matthew Robinson, the last REALLY GOOD executive producer said, the Queen Vic is the real star of the programme.
Something That Puzzled Me
I am always bemused by the way assorted characters manage to amass so much in actual cash in hand. Years ago, I bought a new car from a dealer and completed the transaction in cash. It took days to arrange for that much money to be handed over to me in notes, physically, and several forms of identification, and I banked with the bank in question.
Not only did Janine manage to accumulate £250,000 in cash on Christmas Eve, presumably through the sale of property and share assets - a fact that would be physically impossible in normal circumstances to achieve in one day, much less on Christmas Eve, when most of the institutions necessary to achieve such a feat would be closed for Christmas; but Phil managed to sell the Vic, for a cash price, with no contractual exchange, no solicitors and no legally controlled transaction. Phil didn't even count the money, which, at last count, should have been £1,250,000. That not only begs the question, how did Mick Carter accumulate all that cash, it also begs the question of how something like the sale and transfer of business licence for a concern like a pub could have taken place in the short period of one day, never mind that day was Christmas Day - a day when EVERYTHING is closed.
DTC ... still suspending reality.
Here we are now, entertain us.
First off, hats off to the brilliant Charlie Brooks and Michael French. They carried this episode in its entirety. Brooks played an absolute blinder and French matched her step for step. Did I like the ending Janine received? No. Absolutely not, and I disliked how what she did to Michael Moon apparently has been glossed over to suit the "evil Janine" narrative that's been the meme of the show for the last ten years and which has driven it for the past five, pandering to a demographic who is so narrow-minded and intellectually bereft that they are unable to conceive the idea of a person being a complicated character filled with good and bad parts.
But I take heart from the fact that this isn't the last we'll see of Janine, and that the twist in the tale, whatever it is, is yet to come.
Janine killed in self-defence. Janine married a psychopath who sought, from the birth of their daughter, to undermine and belittle her self-esteem whilst spending all of her inheritance. Janine didn't drive Michael to do anything. She simply had a possession he wanted - Scarlett, whose name he couldn't even utter until Janine returned - and he was willing to kill her, pin the blame on a lame-brained girl who was infatuated with him, and leave with the child.
For those of you who may have forgotten, Michael and Alice plotted to drug and kill Janine and take Scarlett. This plan was enacted after Michael had attempted to strangle Janinen, resulting in her taking an injunction against him. The night he died, he tried to strangle her again, which resulted in Alice stabbing him. He would have killed Janine, himself, but Janine grabbed the knife before he did and killed him ... in self-defence.
And Alice is not entirely innocent. She has confessed, not only to murder, but to plotting murder and abduction. On the home front, she's betrayed Janine, just as everyone else had.
If anything, this episode proved to me that something can make me angry, but I can still appreciate it. That's called critical thinking - something everyone should learn to do, including teachers.
Things That Made Me Angry about this Episode
The David and Janine Show, Featuring Granny Carol.
For anyone attempting to point out that Simon Ashdown can, indeed, write Branningless episodes, think again - Carol is a Branning, and Joey featured briefly - really, this was all about redeeming one Branning.
Janine is right - David is, indeed, a horrible man; she was also right in calling him out for the selfish, greedy asshole that he is. David let his caring image slip when he uttered - or rather muttered a telling line ...
I used to be somebody around her - silk suits, keys to a Merc. Now I'm competing for change with Max Branning.
Which is exactly why he wanted quarter of a million pounds off Janine - for himself. Carol's cancer was a convenient excuse to throw at Janine to make her look small. It failed. I hate the way the Butcher-Beale-Jacksons have treated Janine, treating her like shit until they need some sort of financial recompense.
Janine owes this family! exclaimed David to Carol.
Really? Janine bought the house in which they live and rented it to them for a peppercorn, ensuring that they had a roof over their head. Otherwise, the house would have had to have been sold to clear Pat's debts. As it was, Janine cleared Pat's debts, and David wasn't too proud to ask her to pay for Pat's funeral.
For David to self-righteously claim that he was doing this for his "family," then to reiterate to Janine her utter moral worthlessness (something that Michael did regularly) and even to finish it off by grabbing her by the neck literally sucked shit for the character. David's driving force is jealousy.
He's jealous of Ricky Butcher and of his own brother Ian Beale for the part they held in Pat's affections, the fact that they were better sons to his mother than he would ever be. And he's jealous that Janine turned her life around in the wake of Pat's death. The motivating force behind his blackmail wasn't out of concern for Alice or Carol or wanting to look after Bianca, it was because Janine turned down his request for finance when he originally wanted to buy the car lot.
The most tragic thing about all of this as far as Janine was concerned is that David, a link with Pat, becomes the ultimate person to betray Janine's trust and one of a long line of people whose behaviour reinforces the poor self-esteem Janine sees in herself. Even Pat, herself, committed perjury to send Janine to prison for a crime she didn't commit - Laura Beale's accidental death - because Pat thought Janine should be punished for another death which wasn't even a crime, that of Barry Evans.
I cannot believe TPTB would want to see Janine, arguably the most nuanced and interesting character in recent years, carted off, crying in the back of a police car charged with murder.
Wait a moment ... the confession - sorry, (David's words) the forced confession of her killing Michael was privately taped without her knowledge, in exactly the same way that Lauren taped the forced confession of Stacey Slater regarding Archie Mitchell's murder ... is inadmissable evidence in a court of law. Besides, Alice has already pleaded guilty to murder.
Am I missing something here? We'll have to wait until this has been tied up, but the absolute brilliant scene of the night was the two-header at Janine's house between her and David. Janine was totally right - David is just as greedy, just as selfish and just as devious and dishonest as she is, and he'll suffer.
Which leads me to the David and Carol retcon.
As you know, I'm no fan of Carol, even though I applaud the actress who plays her. I find her character narrow-minded, amoral, judgemental and hypocritical. Yes, she's awaiting results of a biopsy to determine if she's got breast cancer, but she doesn't know the result. Based on her family history, yes, she could have the disease; but equally, the lumps could be hormonal manifestations of the menopause from which she is suffering.
The truth is, Carol wants to be "loved up" by a man - when has she not wanted this? - and at the moment, since she's had to confess her fears to David and he seems understanding, and he's also a familiar face from her past, this is the comfort sex moment. Mas is an unknown quantity, but he's also loyal, mature and someone who would be more of an emotional and psychological support and buffer than David.
I actually find the familial dynamic of Carol, Bianca and David laughable, considering that both women actually look older than Michael French, himself.
Joke line of the night came from Carol to David:-
You're a good dad ...
I spewed my tea when I heard that. David Wicks, a good dad? He's the boy who lied to his dad about a French trip in order to get 200 quid to give to Carol to abort Bianca. He's the man who came onto his daughter before he knew she was his daughter and also admitted to having feelings for her. He's the man who walked out on his marriage to Lorraine, leaving two small children and who never even knew that Karen, his younger daughter, had been killed. He's also the man who ran out, again, on his mentally ill teenaged son, leaving the boy crying after him in the rain. And since then, he's had no contact with Joe, no mention of him. Instead, it's all about Bianca. And suddenly, he's a "good dad," because he's swanned onto the family scene like Daddy Warbucks, making the kids laugh and saying the right things to his Village Idiot daughter.
But that's Carol's stupidity all over - a man she finds attractive kisses her, and she goes all gooey at the knees and they start to spread. Same old same old.
I'm glad she found the phone, because it showed her exactly what a dishonest scrote David is - the lies he was telling her were amazing, and showed her, yet again, that she's only on his mind now for comfort sex and his sympathy. What I didn't like was the fact that she gave Joey the phone.
Alice is not innocent. She broke an injunction, she plotted to murder a woman and take her child ... and she stabbed a man.
In the end, Janine is as she ever was - isolated and alone, but she's never more dangerous than when her back is to the wall. And she's never one to forget.
What does worry me now is what happens to Scarlett. I hated the fact that Queen Bitch Carol reached out for the child at the end. The child has no business with that family. She has a blood aunt in France, who's an educated professional nurse, with a grown son and in a stable relationship with her partner. She also has another blood aunt in Australia in a stable marriage and having raised children. Her paternal grandfather is also alive. She has nothing but a marital connection to Bianca, two of whose children are her cousins. She is nothing to Carol, and I would be sorely pissed off if the Jackson-Beale-Butchers got their chavvy mitts on Scarlett - or Janine's money - which isn't gone, by the way. If she didn't get the Vic, she still has the proceeds from her sale of 40 per cent of the R and R to Phil as well as other assets.
I hope she returns an avenging angel and I do hope she makes Wicks suffer.
The Bitchells and Meales.
I think it's time that Phil and Ian stopped this absurd feud. Why is it still going on? It started when Ian threw a hissy fit about Phil marrying Kathy Beale, Ian's mother, and inlaid into the mix is Phil's fear of Ian's claim on his son, who's Ian's half-brother, and his granddaughter, who's Ian's niece.
That dinner party was appalling.
And I really wanted Denise to reach down that table and smack the fetid shit out of that blonde-haired psychopath who talked to her as though she were a turd.
Ronnie seriously needs to go back to Roswell, Arizona.
So he doesn't want to see Lola with a Beale?
I'd love to know what the Beales have done to Phil Mitchell? This is absurd, puerile and stupid. Of course, everyone knows that the more the two are prised apart, the closer they'll cling. But then, is he seriously hoping his own psycho son will go straight (sexually) and heave up with Lola, or does he expect her to remain celibate all her life?
Seriously, the Mitchells are turning into a joke. They are in a sad and sorry state when the only two who have any sort of moral compass are Billy and Lola.
Christmas with a Village Idiot.
Bianca really is too stupid for words.
And Terry wants his cake and he wants to eat it too.
I love Nikki Spraggan. She's a woman who loves her children. I loved the line that cut that bitch Bianca short:-
You've got my husband and my kids here in this house. With you. What more do you want?
Bianca wants Nikki to let go, which means that she wants to bully Nikki out of her children's lives, the way she and Carol bullied Ricky out of Liam's and Tiffany's lives. But Nikki's made of sterner stuff - she's the best parts of Sam Mitchell and Mandy Salter rolled into one, and she's not going to roll over for Bianca.
She's telling the truth - Terry asked her for Christmas Day, otherwise, he wouldn't have asked Bianca the way he did. He heard his daugther's wish to Santa, and acted upon it - she wanted to be with her mum and her dad on Christmas. Bianca's muttered remark about Rosie getting only the One Direction teeshirt being achieveable was callous. Terry should see what kind of person she is based on these remarks, but I'm not sure what he wants.
He knows his kids miss their mother, yet he blames her for ruining what he had with Bianca. The solution is simple. Terry stays with Bianca and the kids go with their mother, visiting him regularly. To deprive them of contact with their mum is cruel and selfish on his part. Yesterday, Nikki remarked that Terry was still begging her not to leave him, today she said she "let him go" three years ago. Why? I want to know what transpired. In her original visit, Nikki implied that Terry was an impulsive man who fell in love with other women easily.
Bianca's behaviour tonight was totally in character with the childish, self-centred, puerile chavvy bitch she is. What was karmic was her eventually admitting, in little girl fashion, that she really didn't know Terry at all. She just got with him because he was nice to her. Like mother, like daughter.
What an appalling woman she is.
And as much as I like the character of Terry Spraggan, he needs to be in small doses, because the man cannot act.
Things I Liked about This Episode
Moon River.
You just knew that Kat's gift was a cornucopia of successively small packages which would eventually result in a pregnancy test.
I'm happy for the Moons. I love them as a couple, and I hope they go from strength to strength in their new direction. Alfie is one of the few genuinely nice characters in a soap filled with people it's become all to easy to hate.
Another good and subtle power transition was the understated scene between Shane Richie and Danny Dyer. At the end of the day, it really is all about the Queen Vic.
What Surprised Me about This Episode.
A Legion of Whispery-Voiced Men.
In the beginning, we had Phil Mitchell's rasp. Then came Beppe DiMarco, followed by Steve Owen.
Then came the Manc brigade of Jase Dyer, Tony King and now Jake Stone.
A legion of whispery-voiced men, speaking softly and probably wishing they carried a big phallic stick.
Enter the newest member of that fraternity - Danny Dyer as Mick Carter.
Very subtle introduction to a new character played by an actor heretofore known for having a sewer for a mouth and for playing a gangster.
Understated, with a few interactions - and a passing of the torch from past EastEnders (the "transfer of power" with Phil ...
It's all there. You'll find I'm an honest man.
to a brief exchange with the daughter of another iconic landlord, Janine Butcher.
And his original scene with the current landlord, Alfie Moon, who declared the pub, fondly, the best boozer in London.
As Matthew Robinson, the last REALLY GOOD executive producer said, the Queen Vic is the real star of the programme.
Something That Puzzled Me
I am always bemused by the way assorted characters manage to amass so much in actual cash in hand. Years ago, I bought a new car from a dealer and completed the transaction in cash. It took days to arrange for that much money to be handed over to me in notes, physically, and several forms of identification, and I banked with the bank in question.
Not only did Janine manage to accumulate £250,000 in cash on Christmas Eve, presumably through the sale of property and share assets - a fact that would be physically impossible in normal circumstances to achieve in one day, much less on Christmas Eve, when most of the institutions necessary to achieve such a feat would be closed for Christmas; but Phil managed to sell the Vic, for a cash price, with no contractual exchange, no solicitors and no legally controlled transaction. Phil didn't even count the money, which, at last count, should have been £1,250,000. That not only begs the question, how did Mick Carter accumulate all that cash, it also begs the question of how something like the sale and transfer of business licence for a concern like a pub could have taken place in the short period of one day, never mind that day was Christmas Day - a day when EVERYTHING is closed.
DTC ... still suspending reality.
Here we are now, entertain us.
"and I disliked how what she did to Michael Moon apparently has been glossed over to suit the "evil Janine" narrative that's been the meme of the show for the last ten years and which has driven it for the past five, pandering to a demographic who is so narrow-minded and intellectually bereft that they are unable to conceive the idea of a person being a complicated character filled with good and bad parts."
ReplyDeleteThere you go, judging people again. As you well know, Janine has been nasty, vindictive and a schemer right from being a little girl behind the bar when Frank was Landlord.
[and I'm a Janine fan - she's my fave charactor]